


One year of text messages: sent, not received

by doctornerdington



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Future Fic, Inspired by Music, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Past Character Death, Retirement, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock attempts metaphysics, Songfic, Texting, U2 - Freeform, sort of, text fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-17 00:03:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1366627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctornerdington/pseuds/doctornerdington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>12-05-2027<br/>Sent at 14:06<br/>This is the most irrational thing I’ve ever done: sat on a grave, sending texts to a dead man.</p><p>12-05-2027<br/>Sent at 14:06<br/>Second most irrational. You and I, at the start of things, well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One year of text messages: sent, not received

**Author's Note:**

> Italian translation by ShutUpSherlock available here:  
> http://www.efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=2543191
> 
> Graphic by consultingat221b here:  
> http://consultingat221b.tumblr.com/image/90793376676

12-04-2027  
Sent at 10:42  
John, I cannot do this. You cannot be expecting – 

12-04-2027  
Sent at 10:43  
You cannot be expecting anything at all, now, can you? 

12-04-2027  
Sent at 10:56  
Do you want flowers, though? I can’t imagine that you do, but you brought them for my grave, and God knows I didn’t care. Perhaps it is just one of those things that Should Be Done. 

12-04-2027  
Sent at 10:59  
I had no idea how it felt to – 

** 

12-05-2027  
Sent at 14:03  
Another month. Blossoms fade so quickly. The requirements of caring for a grave, I… Thank you. Thank you, John. I suppose this is the very, very least I can do. 

12-05-2027  
Sent at 14:05  
Why do these texts not fail to send? 

12-05-2027  
Sent at 14:06  
This is the most irrational thing I’ve ever done: sat on a grave, sending texts to a dead man. 

12-05-2027  
Sent at 14:06  
Second most irrational. You and I, at the start of things, well. 

12-05-2027  
Sent at 14:10  
Alright, yes. Third. I’ve apologized, and you forgave me, and there is no need to drag the past out into the light. 

12-05-2027  
Sent at 14:52  
When you thought I was dead, though, did you feel like this? 

12-05-2027  
Sent at 14:55  
Did it make it easier, afterwards, that you had someone to blame? I want to blame someone. 

12-05-2027  
Sent at 14:56  
Not you. Don’t be idiotic. You didn’t choose this. 

** 

12-06-2027  
Sent at 09:10  
I still want to blame someone. I want to kill someone. 

12-06-2027  
Sent at 09:37  
I want it to be me, sometimes. 

12-06-2027  
Sent at 10:13  
I don’t believe in heaven, John, you know that. It’s not as if I am imagining a blessed reunion in a blaze of trumpets and clouds of glory. 

12-06-2027  
Sent at 10:15  
You are dead and gone, and your body is in an advanced stage of tissue decomposition that doesn’t bear thinking about, and my John does not, now, exist. I know this. 

12-06-2027  
Sent at 10:15  
I know it. 

12-06-2027  
Sent at 10:16  
I know it. 

12-06-2027  
Sent at 10:31  
I know it. 

12-06-2027  
Sent at 12:09  
I know it. 

12-06-2027  
Sent at 16:35  
I know it. I cannot seem to believe it. This is new, and not pleasant. 

** 

12-07-2027  
Sent at 10:01  
The first time, John, that we were together – it was the first time I’ve felt like that about anything, with anyone. I should have told you that. 

12-07-2027  
Sent at 10:03  
What was that, though? I still don’t know. I do not do well with intangibles. 

12-07-2027  
Sent at 10:06  
I daresay I could study it for the rest of my life and still not understand it. Not without you here to explain it to me. 

12-07-2027  
Sent at 10:07  
Ha, yes, a first for us. I know. 

12-07-2027  
Sent at 10:09  
I apologize. 

12-07-2027  
Sent at 10:14  
You are my helpmeet, in so many ways that I am still recognizing new ones, in your absence. 

12-07-2027  
Sent at 10:15  
Were. Goddamn it. 

12-07-2027  
Sent at 11:47  
Are. 

12-07-2027  
Sent at 12:18  
Why do these texts keep sending?

**

12-08-2027  
Sent at 09:13  
I had a case this week. Quite dangerous. I’d like to say that Greg sends his regards, but he’s not as mad as I am, apparently. 

12-08-2027  
Sent at 09:18  
I miss your body, John. I wake in the night, and I need it. I don’t know how navigate our desideratum when it is now mine alone. 

12-08-2027  
Sent at 09:37  
I tried again, John, just yesterday, and I assure you it was only because you made me promise. It was so very not good. I couldn’t wait to scrub him off of me. I fear I wasn’t kind. 

12-08-2027  
Sent at 09:42  
I slept in your jumper last night. The awful beige one. It helped. 

12-08-2027  
Sent at 09:44  
Not greatly. 

** 

12-09-2027  
Sent at 13:05  
Have been to see Mrs. Hudson. You’d be pleased: I brought her flowers, too. Mycroft says I’m changing. 

12-09-2027  
Sent at 13:07  
Of course I bloody am. 

12-09-2027  
Sent at 13:16  
Why do I persist in feeling as if we are still -- 

** 

12-11-2027  
Sent at 09:00  
I stayed away last month. Did you notice? No, of course not. 

12-11-2027  
Sent at 09:03  
I missed you. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. 

12-11-2027  
Sent at 09:07  
I’ve been reconsidering things, John. I don’t – 

12-11-2027  
Sent at 09:10  
I don’t know quite how to state this. I’ve seen evil, John, as have you. I see it in my work, and I see it in myself, and sometimes I despair. 

12-11-2027  
Sent at 09:11  
The drugs, the black dogs. When I despaired, you carried me. You saw evil, and found there the proof of its opposite. You carried me. 

12-11-2027  
Sent at 09:19  
I asked too much, too often. I know I did. I was supremely undeserving. I hurt you. We hurt each other. Again and again. And you stayed. 

12-11-2027  
Sent at 09:32  
What I am trying to say is this: I think I believe in grace, because you showed it to me. 

** 

07-12-2027  
Sent at 15:48  
ONe year since your diagnosis, and yes< I have been drinking. No drugs though. You’d be proud 

07-12-2027  
Sent at 18:57  
I miss you, John. Sometimes that’s all there is of me now, and I cannot reason through it. 

** 

12-01-2028  
Sent at 9:43  
These flowers are quite beautiful against the snow. I have sneered at romantic convention all my life, and yet, what a lovely thing a rose is. 

12-01-2028  
Sent at 10:02  
I can reason through this, obviously. Nowhere are reason and deduction as vital as in the realm of the softer feelings. Or else I truly am mad. 

12-01-2028  
Sent at 10:14  
Flowers are colourful and scented to attract pollinators, to survive and flourish. This is natural selection, exact science. 

12-01-2028  
Sent at 10:17  
They need not be beautiful to human eyes in the way that they are, though. There is no reason for it, and yet. 

12-01-2028  
Sent at 10:52  
You taught me years ago that not caring provides no advantage, but I took that lesson no further. 

12-01-2028  
Sent at 10:54  
To my detriment. 

12-01-2028  
Sent at 10:55  
And then again, perhaps a flower is just a flower. 

** 

12-02-2028  
Sent at 08:43  
I cannot speak of a god in whom I do not, and will not, believe. Let us just say, some unknown providence, then. 

12-02-2028  
Sent at 08:51  
Evil proves its opposite. Love engenders grace. And then, we have flowers. Our highest assurance of the goodness of providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. 

12-02-2028  
Sent at 08:54  
I have always been a bit not good, but you – you are good enough for the both of us. So I have always thought. 

12-02-2028  
Sent at 09:19  
It is only goodness which gives extras, and so perhaps we have much to hope from the flowers. 

** 

12-03-2028  
Sent at 11:21  
I can’t sleep for thinking. Not unusual, but this has been protracted. How much can I change, and still be myself? 

12-03-2028  
Sent at 11:24  
I’ve railed against this, John, and I’ve resigned myself to it, and I’ve tried to delete it, and nothing stops my mind. 

12-03-2028  
Sent at 11:25  
I have never had an interest in metaphysics. But these matters are consuming me. I love it. I hate it. I cannot abide it. I cannot escape it. I am intoxicated by it. 

12-03-2028  
Sent at 11:27  
It is your fault, and sometimes I want to rage at you. You started this fire in me, and then you left me alone, and I’m crawling through like a helpless infant. 

12-03-2028  
Sent at 11:27  
I may retire rather sooner than we had planned. 

12-03-2028  
Sent at 11:43  
The symbiosis of apis mellifera and magnoliophyta is a delicate mechanism, not fully understood. 

12-03-2028  
Sent at 11:50  
I have a contact in Sussex. Mycroft believes the country will be a calming influence. 

** 

12-04-2028  
Sent at 10:28  
The anniversary has passed, and you’re still there, and I’m still here. I’ve not changed so much that I can be equanimous about this. 

12-04-2028  
Sent at 10:43  
However. I have changed to the extent that I can pose the question: after a lifetime of sacrifice to the cold god Reason, can it be that love comprises a law higher still? 

12-04-2028  
Sent at 10:51  
It is because of you, John, that I know this: love is a temple, and my crucible. 

12-04-2028  
Sent at 11:38  
We were one. And I believe it: we are one, still.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Achtung Baby! Sherlock Songfic Writing Challenge. Inspired by "One," and includes some lyrics. I tried to capture the heartbroken hopefulness of that song, rather than the specifics, but it was haaaaard. Thanks to redscudery for setting up the challenge, and including me!
> 
> Thanks, too, to the Carpenter for the beta read, and the very helpful suggestions. 
> 
> The bits about flowers are straight from ACD canon. 
> 
> Oh, and if anyone's counting, it is my hypothesis that by the year 2027, the 160 character limit on text messages will have been upped to 180. Because I said so.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A poem (don't laugh): undiscovered](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3896926) by [kedgeree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kedgeree/pseuds/kedgeree)




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